


don't give it a hand

by Simwn



Series: I know who I am (when I'm alone) [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23303494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simwn/pseuds/Simwn
Summary: Nathaniel and Andrew have a talk up on the roof.
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: I know who I am (when I'm alone) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679701
Comments: 12
Kudos: 163





	don't give it a hand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Hold Each Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14472156) by [exactly13percent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exactly13percent/pseuds/exactly13percent). 



“Andrew.”

Balanced on the edge of the roof, Andrew carefully doesn’t twitch. He doesn’t know why he wants to in the first place - after the championship game, after Baltimore (after Proust and Evermore), Neil developed a habit of following him up to this spot several nights a week. Sometimes they talk, trading whatever little meaningless secrets Neil has left. Sometimes there are no words, just a shared cigarette and the occasional, deliberate press of thigh against thigh. And sometimes there are still no words, just quick, stuttery breaths and half-swallowed noises too soft to be words or moans or anything of real consequence. 

Now the back of his neck prickles. Something about the tone, maybe. Or the fact that the voice was not preceded by the deliberate scrape of an opening door, another habit Neil has developed to give Andrew time to figure out what kind of night they will have.

He takes a long moment to think, letting his cigarette smolder as a suspicion forms at the back of his skull. Then he takes another moment to twist his head around.

Neil is waiting several feet away, face patiently bland, hands carefully still at his sides. Suspicion rapidly condenses into stark knowledge.

Andrew eyes him, taking a drag on his cigarette. After a moment, he says in a cloud of smoke, “Nathaniel.”

He’s rewarded with a flash of teeth, a brief, sharp smile. “Clever.”

With a little hum of acknowledgment, Andrew lets his body follow his head the rest of the way so that he is facing Nathaniel. He’s reluctantly intrigued, as he always is when Neil’s pieces resolve into unknown answers. “What can I do for you?”

Nathaniel rocks in place, toe to heel. “I just wanted to chat,” he says. His body is loose in the way that Neil’s is when he’s around the Foxes in private, when he feels safe, but Andrew doubts the same holds true for this alter. If anything, Nathaniel is loose like someone about to take a hit, like someone who expects pain from any and every angle. “About you and Neil.” He pauses up on his toes, then drops back down. “And kissing.”

Andrew....has no idea where this is going. “Kissing.”

“Yes. Well, not so much kissing.” Some emotion ripples across Nathaniel’s face, vanishing too quickly for Andrew to parse. “More about what’s after the kissing.” Andrew’s blank expression must convey his lack of understanding perfectly, because Nathaniel follows that up with a bald, “How you’re fucking him on this roof and in the shower and in half a dozen other places as well.”

His heart jumps; he can feel something thick and hot and ugly pooling in his gut, his fists. “Have you been watching? Enjoying the show?” he asks, deceptively light.

Disgust, that is what he couldn’t catch before, tugging at Nathaniel’s (Neil’s) lips. “No,” he says, voice flat. “What Neil gets up to with you is none of my business.”

“And yet, here you are,” Andrew counters. His fingers are itching for a blade. He goes to take another drag off his cigarette instead.

“Because I want to make sure we’re on the same page.” Nathaniel leans forward. “Let me make this clear - you don’t touch any of us  _ except  _ Neil. You don’t touch  _ him _ unless he wants it.”

The cigarette is bare centimeters from his mouth, but Andrew does not breathe in. There’s a lot to unpack from those words, starting with the plural pronoun that implies  _ us _ is not just  _ Neil and Nathaniel _ . Instead, Andrew finds himself snagging on the last sentence. A dozen varied responses crowd his head, but what drops off his tongue is a blank, “...and if I do?”

Another sharp smile spreads across Nathaniel’s face. For the first time he steps inside Andrew’s reach, leaning in but still not touching. “Neil’s forgotten, but  _ I  _ remember all our lessons,” he all but purrs. He lifts one hand to hover over his forearm, exactly where Andrew’s bands sit; the implication is clear. “I’d be  _ thrilled _ to show you.

Cool relief floods Andrew’s veins, leaving him almost dizzy in its wake.  _ I won’t be them _ , he’d told Neil so many weeks ago on this same roof, and he’d meant it. Betsy doesn’t think he’d ever cross that line, tells him over and over that the fact he worries about it means its a remote possibility at best, and Neil (stupid naive lovely Neil), who has never had to say no to the things Andrew is introducing him to, is always enthusiastic with his consent. But it’s his greatest fear, that one day Neil’s  _ yes _ will be a  _ no _ that goes unspoken or ignored, leaving them both shattered in its wake.

And now here’s Nathaniel. Who is making it clear he doesn’t give a  _ shit _ about Andrew’s backstory, laying out the hard line and telling him there will be consequences if he steps over it. Neil would forgive a misstep; judging by the smile and the hard bright light in Nathaniel’s eyes, his alter would not. Distantly, he thinks he should be offended, angry, but the relief sits heavy, stifling any other emotion.

Nathaniel must see that on Andrew’s face, because he nods and steps back. “Glad to see we understand one another,” he says, back to his previous blank manner. Without waiting for a response, he spins and leaves, letting the door close with a quiet click behind him.

After a moment, Andrew turns to look back over the side of the roof. He lets the cigarette burn down, breathing in the smoke and letting his thoughts whir. Research, that’s what he needs to do before the next conversation. Bee would be a good source, though she might choose to be nosy, given the questions he’ll have. Maybe he’ll start with Aaron’s psychology textbook and go from there.

The cigarette is almost gone when he hears the scrape of the door. He takes a last drag before flicking it over the edge, off into the oblivion of night. Keeping his eyes down, he ignores Neil as the other man comes to perch beside him, fishing another two cigarettes out of the carton and lighting them both; one he keeps, the other he passes over, careful to avoid touching him. Neil adjusts himself accordingly, close enough that Andrew can feel his heat but without any contact between them.

“Best weapon in a zombie apocalypse?” Neil offers to the silence; he’s learned this from Nicky, posing questions that can be easily picked up or discarded based on the mood of those around him, and he’s been practicing on Andrew and Kevin, likely in anticipation of meeting the new freshmen in a few months. 

Andrew considers his cigarette. He wants to wrap the quiet around them, hold Neil in this bubble where the past and the future can’t touch them. If he doesn’t answer, he knows Neil will let the silence sit for as long as he needs, will stay with him on this roof until Andrew leaves or sends him away.

“...ice axe,” he says instead, and lets the resulting ridiculous conversation carry them through the night.

**Author's Note:**

> Sooo, this was inspired by exactly13percent's DID!Neil bits in Hold Each Other - I was reading that and then my brain started turning and wondering how Andrew would feel / react if he found out that Neil had DID, and how his and Neil's relationship might be affected, and my brain threw this up in like an hour after letting it percolate for months.


End file.
